About

Vegventures is a food blog with the ambitious goal of cooking a vegan(ized) dish from every cuisine in the world. Read more.

The author

Maija Haavisto is a 31-year old Finnish journalist, translator, medical writer and author living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She loves writing, cooking and photography - in case you hadn't yet figured that out.

Tweet Indonesia is a geographically small country in Southeast Asia consisting of almost 18,000 islands, several of which only partially belong to it. Yet it has over 250 million inhabitants (nearly as many as in the U.S.!) belonging to over 300 ethnicities, with over 700 different languages, which is quite special. At least one country […]

Tweet Judaism has a country, kind of – there are slightly more Jews living outside of Israel than in there – but Israeli cuisine is not the same as Jewish cuisine. The latter of course has geographical differences and some Jewish specialties only exist in one area. Judaism is considered a religion, but it’s also […]

Tweet The official name of Taiwan is “Republic of China”, which may be confusing as the official name of China is “People’s Republic of China”. Taiwan has been ruled by the Japanese and the Chinese and the current existence of the state is a bit muddled, as China (PRC) – and as a result a […]

Tweet With almost 180 million inhabitans Pakistan is one of the most populous countries of the world. Considering that fairly little is known about it in the west, save for its nuclear weapons and it being a neighbour of India. Disputes over some areas have led to wars between India and Pakistan. There have been […]

Tweet Slovakia is a landlocked country in Central Europe, though traditionally culturally associated with East Europe. Until 1993 it formed the country Czechoslovakia together with what is now the Czech republic. Earlier it used to be a part of Austria-Hungary. The economy is very quickly growing, in 2006 the growth in GDP was the highest […]

Tweet South Africa is a large country in Southern Africa (well, duh), unfortunately perhaps best known for its apartheid policy. About 80% of the people are of black origin, showing that yes, you can discriminate against the majority. It is also infamous for some other things, like the mind-blowingly high number of rapes and the […]

Tweet Vietnam is a quite long but mostly very narrow country located in the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. A former colony of France, the country suffered a a war from the 1950s/1960s until 1975, which killed millions of people, also many in the neighbouring countries. (For some reasons, many Americans think the U.S. “won” […]

Tweet Spain is the second largest country in Europe, located in the Southwest, by the Mediterranean. It also includes the Balearic islands, the Canary islands and three exclave states out of the country: the cities of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco and Llívia in France (how come we were never told about these in school?). […]

Tweet Macedonia is a small landlocked country located in the Balkan in Southern Europe. A former Yugoslavian state, it gained independence in 1991. Afterwards there have been some fierce quarrels with Greece, which also has a place called with the same name. Macedonia has plenty of beautiful nature scenery and famous Orthodox churches which also […]

Tweet Philippine cuisine mostly consists of meaty and fishy dishes, with some Spanish influences. Americans are probably most familiar with adobo, a garlicky sauce which is used in canned chipotles (smoked chili) and by the way isn’t available here in Finland, often causing me grief with some recipes. Another famous dish is sinigang, a sour […]